by Simon Hawke
"Impressive," I said. "Ever have any mistakes?"
"Just once or twice," said Rick. "One time, they had a problem down at the power plant. Apparently, the engineer adept had been working overtime and allowed the maintenance spell to slip a bit, which caused a temporary brownout. One of our tenants got stuck for a few minutes, but then the emergency thaumaturgic generator kicked in. It's a backup system that stores enough power to get us through about twelve hours. Another time, one of our tenants had a bad case of laryngitis, and the system didn't recognize his voice. The elevator took him to the basement and he had to wait a few minutes till security arrived, but fortunately he had a sense of humor about it. We're actually set up pretty well here. The tenants like the added security features. It makes them feel safe."
We stopped outside apartment 3-E, at the end of the hall, and Rick knocked at the door. I noticed it had one of those small pet doors built into it.
A muffled voice on the other side said, "Who is it?"
"It's Rick, Princess. Got someone I think you should meet."
"Come on in, Rick."
Rick used his passkey to open the door. "Hey, Princess. Want you to meet a new friend of mine. This is Catseye Gomez. He's staying with Mr. Solo up in 10-C."
My one good eye met a pair of cat pupils floating in twin pools of gold that seemed to suck me in. I felt a low growl start in my throat that had nothing to do with anger, and I fought it down before it came out in a mating yowl that would have made a torn my age look like a complete idiot. Princess was royalty, all right. A young and regal-looking calico with enough style and self-possession to enrapture an entire alleyful of stalking toms. I wasn't exactly a young prowler anymore and, while I've done more than my share of backyard serenading in my day, it had been a long time since a sexy little feline got to me that way. This one had it all, in spades, and it hit me the moment I came walking through that door.
I felt my claws digging into the carpet, and all my muscles tensed. I tried to hide the involuntary reaction, but I wasn't too successful, because she picked up on it at once, and I thought I caught a faint glint of amusement in those lambent, golden eyes.
"Catseye Gomez, eh?" she said, in a lilting voice that was pure music to my ears. "That's an unusual name."
"I'm an unusual guy," I said.
"I can see that," she replied, giving me the slow, critical once-over.
I could guess what she was thinking. I didn't look like your typical, pampered, domestic thaumagene. I looked more like what I was, an old scrapper of an alley cat, a bit chewed up around the edges and getting slightly long in the tooth. Each scar, however, was a badge of honor, and I wore them proudly. Especially ole Betsy, my turquoise eyeball. I saw her looking at it. They all do. It's striking and unusual and it makes me look dashing and romantic as all hell. I gave her a wink with it. She winked back and my tail started to twitch.
"Well, I'll leave you two to get acquainted," Rick said. "I've got to go and get ready for class."
"Thanks for the help, Rick," I said.
"Don't mention it. Oh, and if you want to get a little cat door like that for your place, have Mr. Solo give me a call. I've got a couple of doors in storage that have them."
"I'll ask him about it. Thanks again."
"Anytime. See you around."
He closed the door behind him.
"Nice fella," I said.
"Rick? Yes, he's very nice. Come in and make yourself at home."
I followed Princess into the living room, watching that supple, sensuous walk as she preceded me. She knew I was watching, too, and she gave her tail a teasing little flick for my benefit.
I took a quick glance around the place. It was very stylish, and also very feminine. A single woman's apartment, no question about it. It was all done in muted pastels, very soft and inviting, and very balanced. Lot of warm earth tones, indirect lighting, some nice abstract oils on the walls. The paintings were not your typical artsy nonsense, the sort of modular, glue-a-bunch-of-garbage-on-a-canvas crap you see in lots of galleries and office buildings these days, but very cool and flowing sorts of pieces, with a lot of swirling movement to them, suggesting waves and ocean currents. It was the sort of art that seemed to draw you in and grow on you, relaxing you the more you looked at it. Very tasteful.
There was a state-of-the-art home entertainment system, as well, built into a large and attractive cabinet. The radio was on, tuned to a local FM station. One of those all-news, all-talk formats, morning news alternating with interviews and features. The woman who was on the air had one of those brisk, clear, well-modulated voices that sound professional and friendly at the same time. The volume was turned down low enough to listen to, yet not be obtrusive.
Princess jumped up onto the couch and stretched out languidly. I took the chair, keeping the glass coffee table between us. It wasn't that I didn't trust myself, but I figured that every torn who saw her probably came on like gangbusters, and with a classy kitty like this a fella ought to take his time.
She cocked her head at me, noticing that I was purposely keeping a polite distance, and she seemed to like that. She gave me an added little stretch and then settled herself down, giving me an unsettlingly direct gaze with those incredible golden eyes.
"Remind me to be especially nice to Rick," I said.
They say that cats can't smile. They're wrong. There's a certain kind of look cats get when they're especially contented or feeling at peace with the world and very pleased with themselves. There's a slight tightening of the muscles around the mouth-which if you look closely, actually resembles a Mona Lisa sort of smile-and a slight squinting of the eyes. It doesn't sound like much, but then, what's to describe about a human smile? It's more than just a stretching of the lips. You can do all sorts of little things with your facial muscles, but a genuine smile comes from somewhere inside and somehow manages to shine out through the eyes, which are the windows of the soul. Maybe that's why cats squint a little when they smile. We're very private creatures.
"Rick was merely being a dutiful recruiter," she said.
"Recruiter?" I said, somewhat taken aback.
"He's a fellow activist," said Princess. "That's why he might have seemed a bit more considerate than your average human. He really loves animals and he's an ERA member."
She didn't say "era," but spelled it out, letter by letter.
"ERA?" I said. "What's that?"
"Equal Rights for Animals," Princess replied. "You mean you never heard of us before?"
"I'm from out of town," I said. "Santa Fe, New Mexico."
"Ah. Well, we've been trying to start chapters in several other cities," Princess said, "but we're not quite organized enough yet."
"We?"
"I'm one of the founders," Princess said. "Susan and I started ERA together, along with some of our friends. It's still pretty much a grass-roots effort, but we're starting to gain some real recognition."
"Susan?"
"Susan Jacobs. My human friend. She lives here. That's her on the radio right now."
"I see." That explained why Rick had no reservations about knocking on the door at a little after 6:00 a.m. Morning radio personalities get up to go to work before the crack of dawn. "What exactly is it you're trying to accomplish?"
"Pretty much what our name implies," Princess replied. "We want animals to be treated ethically, to be granted civil rights, and we're lobbying for citizenship for thaumagenes."
"Citizenship?"
"Absolutely," Princess said. "And why not? Why should we be treated as inferiors? We think, we reason, we communicate, and we're literate. We are intelligent beings."
"Have you met the little pink hairball who lives upstairs?" I asked.
She gave a little snort of disgust. "Pinky is a spoiled and pampered case of arrested development. A classic example of conditioned subservience and just the sort of thing we're fighting against. The point is that if Pinky were human and not a thaumagene, even with his stunted personality inta
ct, he would still have rights, legally defined civil rights, while thaumagenes have none. We are intelligent, reasoning, feeling beings, and yet we are treated as property. Bought and sold on the marketplace, frequently abandoned, often abused, with no recourse to the courts, no rights under the law whatsoever. We're no better than slaves, Gomez. Your human owner can do anything he wants with you and you've got no say about it whatsoever."
"Whoa, Princess, back up a bit," I said. "First of all, I'm nobody's slave. 1 haven't got a human owner. Never did."
"Never!"
"Nope. Never."
"What about Mr. Solo? Isn't he your owner?"
"Nope. He's an old friend of the guy I used to share digs with in Santa Fe. I'm only visiting."
"Well, what about this man in Santa Fe?"
"Paulie? He wasn't my owner, anymore than I was his pet. We were just friends, see? He picked me up and took me home once after I'd gotten chewed up pretty badly in a fight. He nursed me back to health and we became close friends. I just sort of hung around, but I carried my weight, sister, and I was free to come and go as I pleased, anytime. Before that, I lived on the streets and fended for myself. And I don't mind saying I did a pretty fair job of it. The way I see it, any animal that doesn't like its circumstances is free to change things. It's a hard life out there, which is why most of them don't go for it, but if freedom is something that's important to you, then you ante up and take your chances."
"What about the animals that are kept locked up inside, or the ones who are kept in cages?" she asked.
"Well, that's how I started out, kitten, but I made a break for it as soon as I was old enough to realize there was another way. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm unsympathetic to your views, but if you ask me, I think you've bitten off a whole lot more than you can chew."
"Really? What makes you think so?" she asked, defensively.
"Hell, kitten, I've been around and I know people. I know animals, as well. You take a dog like that silly mutt upstairs. How long do you think a creature like that would last out on its own? I'd give it a day or two, at most. I've known animals with human owners and I've known animals who lived out on the streets and, believe me, the ones with people to take care of them are a lot better off. What's more, most of the cats I knew out on the streets would trade places with them in a hot second, except for a few hardcases like myself. Aside from that, what you're talking about would require some pretty drastic changes in society and, frankly, I can't see humans sitting still for it.
"Can you see some dog taking its owner to court because it got smacked with a newspaper for going doo-doo on the rug?" I asked her. "No way, baby, it's nuts. Besides, where would you draw the line? Would you grant civil rights to all animals, or only to some and exclude others? Would you just grant them to thaumagenes, because we're intelligent and ordinary animals are stupid? Let me tell you something, I've known plenty of ordinary alley cats who had a lot more street smarts than most thaumagenes I've run across, even if they couldn't speak the human lingo or read a paper. What about them? Or don't they count? And if you grant civil rights to all animals, then what are you going to do about the people who eat meat? Are they suddenly going to become guilty of murder? Cannibalism? You going to pass a law to make all humans vegetarians? It just ain't natural. Look at human teeth. Humans evolved to eat meat. And so, for that matter, did most animals. You ever eat a mouse? Maybe kill a bird?"
She shuddered. "Of course not! That's absolutely vile."
"I didn't think so. But that's because you've got your 'human friend' to buy you a nice brand of cat food, right? And what do you think that's made of? I've got news for you, kitten. If you ever had to go hungry, perish the thought, you'd pounce on the first mouse or sparrow you could get your pretty little claws into and you'd relish the taste of its hot blood spurting down your throat."
"Stop it!" she said. "I don't want to hear that kind of talk! It's disgusting!"
' "Yeah, well, it's no more disgusting than you scarfing down your canned chicken and liver. The truth isn't always pleasant to our sensibilities."
It occurred to me that maybe I was being a bit harsh with her. After all, she'd led a pretty sheltered life and couldn't really be blamed for not knowing the score. She was one fine feline, you could bet on that, but all the class and sex appeal in the world couldn't make up for lack of experience, the kind of experience you only get when you have to look the cold, dark, unfriendly world smack in the face and play the cards you're dealt without whining about it.
"Look," I said, "I'm not trying to put you down. I think you're motivated by the best intentions, but I just don't think you've really thought it through."
"There are a lot of thaumagenes and even a good number of humans among our membership who'd disagree with you," she said, stiffly. "We've gotten a lot of response from Susan's radio spots. A lot more than we thought we'd get. And most of it has been very positive, I'll have you know."
"Most of it?"
"Yes, most of it."
"Meaning there's been some negative response," I said.
"That's to be expected," she replied. "Anytime you introduce proposals for profound social change, there are always going to be those who resist, and support the status quo."
"That's right, kiddo. And most of them aren't going to bother getting in touch with you. For every negative response you got, there's probably at least a hundred or a thousand out there who simply wrote the whole thing off as a crackpot idea, not to be taken seriously. Oh, you'll hear from the hardcore opposition, the ones who are offended or threatened by what you're proposing, or the flakes who like to blow off steam, but they only represent the minority. You'll hear from the majority at the ballot box, assuming you ever get that far with it. Frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath."
"That's a pretty defeatist attitude," she said. "You struck me as a fighter."
"I am that, kitten, but I try to pick my battles. Tilting at windmills ain't my style."
"So you're satisfied to remain oppressed, is that what you're telling me?"
"I'm not telling you anything of the sort," I said. "I've never considered myself oppressed. I've lived my life the way I chose to live it and I've got no regrets. If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it exactly the same way. I'm sorry if I'm not demonstrating the proper enthusiasm, but I'm afraid I wouldn't make a very good recruit for your group."
"I see," she said. "So you've got what you want and screw everybody else, is that it?"
"You know, it really is too bad," I said. "You're a very classy feline, kitten. I think I might have enjoyed getting to know you, but you're spoiled and your political agenda keeps getting in the way. I don't agree with you about this one thing, so based on mat, you've made up your mind that you already know everything you need to know about me. If I'd gotten all excited about your ERA group, that would've made me useful. But I don't see it your way, so that makes me wrong, and if you can't convince me of the error of my thinking, then you've got no use for me. I don't think that's a very practical way to look at things. It limits your options and gives you a bad case of tunnel vision. I'm not really interested in arguing with you, Princess, or in trying to convince you that I'm right. You'll find out for yourself. But when you go through life with your kind of attitude, it pretty much guarantees that you're not going to learn much. And if you do learn anything, it's going to come the hard way. Like I said, it really is too bad."
I hopped down to the floor and headed for the door. I paused briefly to turn around and take one more look at her, all proud and haughty and indignant, and beautiful as hell. Yeah, it definitely was too bad.
"Good-bye, kitten. And I really wish you well, despite what you may think."
"Good-bye, Gomez," she said, frostily.
Yeah, no winks this time. Definite coolness there. I'd rained on her parade and been pretty graceless about it, too. Well, I guess I'm just not a very graceful kind of cat. I stood there, feeling the temperature drop, and wondered what the hell I wa
s doing in a place like this, the ritzy luxury apartment of some honey-toned, big-city broadcaster and her politically active feline. It was crazy. I didn't belong here. So I left, thinking about the way things might have been.
I went through the little cat door and trotted down the hall to the elevator. I jumped up on the ashtray thing, stretched up against the wall, and pushed the call button. Yeah, too bad. The first thing I'd seen in Denver that I liked and she turned out to be a fruitcake.
I thought about some of the things she'd said while I waited for the elevator, and I had to admit that her position was not entirely without merit. Take what happened earlier that morning. I'd have been stuck in that apartment if I hadn't figured out a way to call the building manager and have him come up and let me out. And if Rick hadn't been thoughtful enough to put those ashtray things beneath the call buttons, I wouldn't have been able to use the elevator, either.
The elevator arrived and I got in. "Floor, please."
"Lobby," I said.
"Thank you, Mr. Gomez."
The doors slid shut and the elevator started to descend. Needless to say, just getting into the elevator would've been only half the problem if it had had regular floor buttons I couldn't reach, instead of a fancy, voice-response computer. No question about it, the human world was not set up very well for animals, but that's because it was the human world.
Animals were never meant to live in cities, they were meant to live in the wild. An old street survivor like me could probably handle it, but most domestic animals couldn't, thaumagenes included. We were an artificial species, one that would never have existed if humans hadn't created us for their own amusement. However, Princess had a point. Just because humans had created us did not necessarily mean we were not entitled to some rights. I guess I could see certain laws against abuse of animals, for instance, just as there were laws against child abuse. Just because you created something that was a living thing did not give you the right to mistreat it.
